Saying Yes When You Really Want To Say No

I’m betting you have to say “no” a lot as a parent: “No, you can’t watch TV right now”; “No, we can’t play outside because there’s a thunderstorm”; “No, you don’t need candy when it’s almost time for dinner.” But sometimes we can also find ourselves saying “no” to the important things, too. 

I think there’s probably multiple reasons we do this: our schedules are busy and our days are full and there simply isn’t time to break out the paints when they ask. We don’t want to deal with the mess, like we talked about earlier this week. Maybe it seems like our kids should be spending their time on “more important” things, like academics or sports. And sometimes, if we are being honest, we say “no” simply because we don’t want to put in the effort needed for whatever our child is asking, because we want to keep things simple so we can do what WE want. 

I totally get this temptation; I battle it every day as a stay-at-home mom, and there are plenty of days where I give in to it and take the easy route. And sometimes we have legitimate reasons to say “no”: maybe you were up half the night with the baby, and you can barely keep your eyes open; maybe you are getting ready to leave in twenty minutes and you know by the time you get out the craft supplies it will be time to clean up and put shoes on. I want to acknowledge here that there are absolutely moments in our week where it’s just not realistic to say “yes” to creativity. To the mamas who are in a hard season right now, I want to encourage you to show yourself some grace and learn to be okay with doing what you can during this season, even if it feels like a little. But for those of us who aren’t in those hard seasons, there are probably plenty of moments where we really could say “yes,” but it’s not convenient so we take the easy road. I want to encourage us to look at motherhood (and fatherhood, if you’re a dad reading this), as something to give our all to; I don’t want to reach the end of my time on earth and realize I did the bare minimum in my journey of parenthood. If, like me, you want this, too, but you also feel the struggle of actually living it out, I think there are some things that can help:

1. Know what you value as a family. My first year as a homeschooler, I heard someone say that you should have a vision statement for your homeschool to give you something to fall back on on the hard days when you’re tempted to quit. The vision statement my husband and I wrote that year isn’t just a list of academic standards we want to meet in our homeschool, it’s actually a list of ideals we want to live out in our home. These are the things that shape not just our homeschool, but how we do life in our home. They are also the things I fall back on when I want to take the easy road, the reminders I need of why it’s worth it to let my kids get muddy in the backyard instead of handing them a screen. If you don’t have something like this for your home, I would encourage you to start praying about it and working on it with your husband. But once you have it, I also want to remind you that these things are only actual priorities for your family, if they are reflected in how you spend your time (and, I would argue, your money). If I say I value creativity but my kids are spending more time on devices than they are in imaginative play and other creative pursuits, then I’m not really prioritizing these things in my home. I also think this is a good filter to help us distinguish between a genuine conviction of the Holy Spirit and “mom guilt.” We are never going to perfectly achieve our family values, but we should be able to see them getting our attention throughout our days. 

2. Recognize that the more often we say “yes,” the easier the “nos” will be. You know when your child asks you a question and when you answer “no” they respond with “But you never let me do that!”? Sometimes I want to roll my eyes when they say that because I actually let them do it just the day before (or an hour ago in the preschooler’s case 🤣), but sometimes it also feels like a reality check for me, because when I stop and think about it, I realize that I actually can’t remember the last time I said “yes” to this particular request. Or maybe the day has been peppered with a whole bunch of “nos” that felt reasonable or even necessary at the time, but now I’m realizing that what my child has heard from me all day is “no.” I think sometimes we have this idea as parents that we can say “no” whenever we feel like it because we are the parent; sometimes we forget that part of our job as parents is to model serving and humility for our kids. What I’ve found is that the more I can say “yes” to my kids, the better they handle it when I have to say “no.” It’s like the “love tank” Gary Thomas talks about in The Five Love Languages: the more our children see us sacrificing our own wants for them, the more their love tank is filled, and the better they can handle being told “no.” If you feel like your child melts down every time they hear “no,” it might be because they’ve heard it too much here lately.

3. Head off the tendency to say “no” by building margin into your day for creativity. I learned early on in homeschooling that if left to my natural tendencies, I would plan so much schoolwork that we would be doing it from 8-5 everyday. But one of the reasons I homeschool is so that my kids can have time for imaginative play, creativity, and the pursuit of their own interests. This means that I have to put limits on our school day: our school day ends at lunchtime, EVEN if we didn’t finish everything I planned for that day. This way my kids at least have the afternoon to play. I’ve also had to be intentional about not overscheduling our week. We attend a big church with A LOT of events throughout the month, but me and the kids can’t be at all of them if they are going to have time to just be kids. We also can’t do ALL the extracurriculars. Don’t forget to check your weekly schedule against what you’ve decided is important for your family and make adjustments as needed.

Earlier I was “attempting” to read my book and drink my coffee, like I do every day for at least a little bit after the toddler goes down for his nap. My natural inclination when my four-year-old asked me to play a board game with her was to say “no,” and if I’m being honest I’ve done that more times than I can count, especially when I’m reading. I HATE being interrupted during a good book (if I had a dollar for every GIF my husband has sent me that centers on not messing with someone while they’re reading, I would be a really rich woman), and by the time we reach naptime, I usually feel like if I don’t have just a COUPLE minutes of quiet, my head is going to explode. But today I said “yes,” and I was so glad because then I didn’t feel guilty telling her “not yet” when she asked me to play a second game while working on this post. I really don’t think we are ever going to regret saying “yes” to time with our kids and to creativity. So now I’m going to wrap this up and go play another board game (I just hope it’s not Lion In My Way again 🥴).